Most Common Garage Door Injuries and How to Prevent Them

Your garage door is an important part of your home, but you probably don’t think too much about it unless it’s not working properly. It’s important to remember that your garage door is a moving part that can weigh hundreds of pounds. Serious injury can occur if safety precautions are not observed. 

In fact, research shows that garage door accidents can cause as many of 30,000 injuries a year, some of which are fatal. 

Most Common Garage Door Injuries

To help protect yourself, here are some of the most common garage door injuries and how you can avoid them.  

Getting Hit With a Falling Garage Door

This happens more often than you might think, and it’s one of the most dangerous accidents that can occur with a falling garage door. This can happen in a number of ways. You may be closing the door as you walk out and fail to time it correctly. Maybe you remember something after you cross the threshold and think you can quickly jump back into your garage in time.

The worst scenario is when a child is playing underneath the garage door. We may assume that the door will automatically stop and retract when it detects an object underneath, but this is not always the case.

In addition, a faulty garage door can potentially come down on your car or get hit by your car as you drive in or out of the garage. This may injure you or your passengers and result in damage to your car.

Fingers Getting Pinched in the Garage Door

Getting your fingers caught in the garage door is usually not catastrophic but it can be incredibly damaging and painful. It can result in broken bones and even amputation. It can occur due to the same situations as being hit by the door, such as reaching back into your garage while it is closing.

Getting Cut With Garage Door Window Glass

If the window glass in your garage door breaks, those shards can be extremely sharp and dangerous and cause severe cuts.

Conditions such as severe weather and hurricanes can cause a garage door window to break. If you are taking shelter in your garage, the broken glass could cause harm. In fact, around 800 people in the U.S. are lacerated by garage door window glass every year.

Injuries can happen due to carelessness, and they can also happen if you attempt to repair your garage door by yourself. Replacing a broken spring can seem easy, but if you do not take the proper safety precautions, it can be quite dangerous.

Hire a professional for any needed garage door repairs. In the San Diego area, Easy Open Door has garage door repair experts who have been trained and tested on the latest garage door safety techniques and can safely and quickly perform any garage door repair.

How to Prevent Garage Door Injuries

To protect yourself from injuries, it’s critical to make sure your garage door’s photo eye sensors are in perfect working order.

The photo eye sensors are a federally mandated part of your garage door system that is designed to prevent your garage door from coming down if there is something underneath obstructing its path. The sensors generate a laser that connects them. If something interrupts that connection while the door is closing, the door automatically retracts.

This safety mechanism has been required in all automatic garage doors since the 1990s. If your door is older, you must have it replaced immediately.

Your garage door professional should check the condition of your photo eye sensors as part of your annual or semi-annual garage door maintenance check, so make sure to schedule this service.

To prevent broken glass from causing laceration injuries, you should make sure that the windows in your garage are made from shatterproof glass.

Most modern garage doors that are less than 10 years old already feature shatterproof glass. If your glass is not shatterproof, have the windows replaced as soon as possible.

Even if you are confident that your garage door sensor system is working perfectly, you should always take precautions to stay safe around your garage door.

Never let children play underneath an open garage door and always make sure there is no one underneath the door before you press the close button. Always stay clear of a closing garage door and do not rely on the safety system to protect you.

Contact Easy Open Door for a New Garage Door or Garage Door Maintenance Today

One of the best ways to ensure your garage door enjoys safe operation for years to come is to schedule regular maintenance. You can also consider contacting the experts to install a new, state-of-the-art garage door and discuss your safety concerns. If you are located in San Diego County, turn to the garage door specialists at Easy Open Door for garage door replacement, installation and maintenance and repair.

We are a Master Authorized Dealer® of Clopay® garage doors, the leading garage door manufacturer known for the safety and reliability of their products. We have received the Angie’s List Super Service Award year after year since 2005 and have hundreds of positive reviews on top review sites online.

For an estimate on a new garage door or to schedule an appointment for garage door installation, maintenance or repair, contact Easy Open Door today.